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Dominic Raab To Visit USA To Negotiate US / UK Trade Deal

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Jennifer1984 On July 20, 2022
Returner and proud





Penzance, United Kingdom
#1New Post! Aug 07, 2019 @ 12:05:44
Dominic Raab Visit To US

The very first thing about this is how wierd it is that Johnson is sending the Foreign Secretary on a trade mission when the Minister for Overseas Trade and Development is Liz Truss. Odd...? Yeah, I thought so too.

Be that as it may......

For those of you who have never heard of the snivelling nonentity, Our Foreign Secretary is Dominic Raab (rhymes with 'barb' ). Before we start here are a few examples of his record in Government:

As Secretary of State for Exiting the EU (DexEU) he was instrumental in drafting the Teresa May Withdrawal Agreement......... and then promptly resigned from his post in opposition to it as soon as the bad press started.

In 2018 he claimed that immigration had caused house prices in England to rise by 20%. When challenged by the Department for National Statistics to provide evidence to support his claim he withdrew the statement.

In November 2018, when still DexEU he was cornered into admitting that he had no idea the port of Dover (only 26 miles from Calais and Britain's biggest and most indispensable trading port since the Middle Ages) was so important. He said: " “I hadn’t quite understood the full extent of this, but if you look at the UK and look at how we trade in goods, we are particularly reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing."

Wow... Dover is important?? No s***, Sherlock.

Raab then set in place a government plan with ferry firms to provide additional shipping to handle extra freight going in and out of Dover. Unfortunately one of the companies he gave a lucrative government contract to, Seaborne Freight,* turned out to.... er.... not have any ships.

Yes, you read that right. They not only didn't have any ships, but Raab's department signed the legally binding contract without reading the company's terms and conditions which, on closer examination, were found out to have been cut and pasted directly from the website of an online takeaway food outlet. (you couldn't make this up, could you..?)

The T's & C's contained items such as how to order a meal and other little gems like.... oh, read it yourself.....

Seaborne Freight T's and C's

Labour MP Mike Gapes tweeted: "Well. Well. Fish and Chips, Curry, Chinese, Kebab or Pizza. Seaborne Freight certainly have plans to Take Away our money."

So......... this is the man Britain is sending to the US to negotiate a trade deal which is absolutely imperative to Britain in terms of the success (don't make me laugh) of Brexit.

Raab will have to deal with tough negotiators who are not there to do Britain any favours and who know we are in an extremely weak and vulnerable position.

Sending Dominic Raab? We couldn't be in worse hands if we sent Mr Bean.

He's kicked off in fine form, expecting a huge series of upsides. No idea how, as we have such a weak position from which to bargain for anything.

I wonder if the US will mention the Good Friday Agreement? I hope not because as of yesterday's newspapers he admitted he hadn't even read it.

Dominic Raab: Good Friday Agreement

Dominic Raab has become the latest politician to admit an embarrassing lack of knowledge when it comes to the six counties across the Irish Sea.

Appearing before the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee, Raab was asked by the unionist MP Lady Sylvia Hermon, “Have you read the Good Friday Agreement?” He replied: “Well, I haven’t sat down, and started from the beginning and gone through it.”
(it's only 35 pages long. It's hardly Lord of the Rings).

But enough of the incompetence of Dominic Raab. He's going to Washington and that's that, and he's going to jolly well tell you American chappies that we need a deal quickly so you'd better get your finger out. No dilly-dallying, now.

So... what is the current situation..? Well, at the moment the US is Britain's second largest trading partner:


British annual sales to European Union countries: £353,981,863,263

British annual sales to United States £80,568,126,775

So obviously, ditching trade with the EU to strike a deal with the US is clearly in Britain's interests. Not.

The nub of the figure above is this. We sell more to the US than we buy.

Quite simply, my Transatlantic cousins.... The irony is that we currently run a trade surplus with the US, and we know what Trump thinks of countries who do that. This isn't going to end well for Britain, is it....?

Another thing is, that as EU members, we already have a trade deal with the US. That automatically ends when / if we leave the EU. Our current tariff rate with the US is 2%. Does anybody think a new arrangement, struck by Raab of all people... and under WTO rules will give us that..? Nah. I don't think so either.

The American point of view has already been spelled out by former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers who was in Britain earlier this week and spoke on BBC Radio 4's "Today" programme that he did not believe a “desperate” UK would manage to secure a good post-Brexit trade deal.

“Britain has no leverage, Britain is desperate … it needs an agreement very soon. When you have a desperate partner, that’s when you strike the hardest bargain.”

I don't blame him for pointing that out, and I don't blame the US for kicking Britain in the balls. I can't imagine any scenario where Britain will come out of this with a better deal than the one we have now as EU members... or even anything that maintains our trade surplus.

Trump's men will show us no mercy. No matter how upbeat and optimistic Dominic Raab is.

What do you guys over there think is going to happen in these trade negotiations...?? How is this going to pan out from your end..?



Knowing Raab, the only thing he'll come back with is an agreement to buy automatic rifles for the entire British population. At least Priti Patel would be happy..!!

The Johnson government is pinning all it's hopes.... is gambling the most important part of the trading future of the country...... on one spin of a roulette wheel.

And the wheel is rigged.









*Seaborne Freight (UK) Limited were only founded in April 2018, and barely registered with Lloyds of London before they were offered a contract by Raab's department in October 2018 and signed in December 2018.

The people who owned the business weren't exactly squeaky clean. Seaborne's founder and Chief Operating Officer, Glenn Dudley, was imprisoned for two months for possessing a shotgun and the company's chief executive, Ben Sharp, previously ran a ship chartering business, that was forced into liquidation following court petitions from HM Revenue and Customs. The amount of unpaid tax was not stated, but the former company had a total of £1.78m in unpaid debts.

How this company - that appeared out of nowhere just as an announcement to award shipping contracts was announced - were awarded a contract without any checks being made about them or having any track record in freight shipping is astonishing.

Questions were asked by a Parliamentary committee of inquiry but everybody harrumphed and passed the buck and records were lost and details of meetings, etc mysteriously disappeared........ You get the picture.

Although Raab was the prime mover and shaker in making sure Seaborne Freight were awarded a contract, what little blame that did get apportioned fell on the shoulders of Transport Secretary Chris Grayling... otherwise known in British Politics as "Failing Grayling" for his calamitous performance in every department he has ever had a hand in. Such as the justice Department..... But I'll keep that for another day.

If you think by now that Raab is a walking disaster area, wait until you read about Grayling..!!
gakINGKONG On October 18, 2022




, Florida
#2New Post! Aug 07, 2019 @ 13:11:09
I like Mr Bean.
mrmhead On March 27, 2024




NE, Ohio
#3New Post! Aug 07, 2019 @ 13:32:15
Your comments make Raab sound quite similar to our Dumpster in Chief - with one exception - Trump is NEVER wrong ... in his own mind ... so will never admit as such.
Jennifer1984 On July 20, 2022
Returner and proud





Penzance, United Kingdom
#4New Post! Aug 08, 2019 @ 09:37:50
It gets worse. Another Dominic is now in the picture. Dominic Cummings. An unelected anarchist spin doctor who was the central figure in the referendum campaign. Johnson invited him into the Cabinet to engineer his strategy for leaving on 31 October.

As I said, Dominic Cummings has NOT been elected into the role. A completely new job has been invented by Johnson to get him into government. There is no democracy involved.

Democracy began and ended with the referendum. Democracy has been frozen at the point the vote was counted and nothing since matters. Not the corrupt campaign, not the inconvenient fact that we have a parliament not prepared to implement the negotiated deal, not the fact that most of what we were promised about a smooth exit has been binned, not the two changes in PM, not the three plus years that have elapsed since the vote, not the acknowledged damage a no deal exit will wreak on our country, not the ongoing damage to our relationship with our neighbours.

In other words none of the normal workings of our democracy where checks and balances ensure that stupid decisions are prevented from progressing far enough to inflict harm on our people. Democracy is now broken and we are in the hands of a right wing dictator and an anarchist. Shame on all of us for allowing it to happen.

Add to this the willingness of Johnson to allow an unelected adviser too much influence, to say what he wants and to indicate a willingness to defy Parliament. Cummings, who is unelected, has already gained too much influence over the working of government.

One Conservative insider said that Cummings had in effect demanded control over Johnson’s operation as his price for entering government and proceeded to sideline more moderate advisers, such as ex-City Hall stalwart Sir Eddie Lister, while installing a team of “true believers” in hard Brexit largely from the former Vote Leave campaign.

The source described Cummings’ grip over No 10 as a “reign of terror”, with advisers petrified about keeping their jobs and being told they are expected to be working flat out to deliver Brexit come what may by the 31 October deadline.

Lister was initially briefed to the media as Johnson’s newly appointed chief of staff and is described by some inside Downing Street as one of “the sensibles”. But an internal No 10 email shows that Cummings is now styled as “assistant to the prime minister” in charge of Brexit and domestic policy, while Lister has been downgraded to “chief strategic adviser” responsible for foreign affairs, business and security.

A Tory special adviser told the Guardian (a British newspaper) that Cummings was “absolutely running the show” and was even more ruthless and difficult to work with than Theresa May’s former advisers Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill: “The level of terror is greater than Priti Patel would like to exert on the criminal classes. It is far, far scarier than under Nick Timothy. He is two Fionas plus a Nick rolled into one. It’s the worst of both worlds in one person.”

Johnson becoming PM wasn't an appointment, it was a coup d'etat.
restoreone On January 30, 2022




, Ohio
#5New Post! Aug 08, 2019 @ 14:11:21
Jen Jen Jen
You should have nothing to worry about. Just tell your chap to offer the following to Trump.
The Royal St. Georges becomes "The Royal St. Trump.
Windsor Castle becomes Trump Castle.

You could also give his kids say a Duke, Dutchess.

Problem fixed. Hope this helps.
Jennifer1984 On July 20, 2022
Returner and proud





Penzance, United Kingdom
#6New Post! Aug 09, 2019 @ 09:38:53
That could easily be arranged, Resty. No problem there. The trouble with that is he already thinks he rules the world. A golf course probably doesn't cut it any more.


Meanwhile.... Just in case anybody thinks I'm making all this up, or exaggerating the extent to which this crisis is leading us.......

some relevant posts snipped from a thread that has appeared on one of my LGBT forums. Smilliekylie is a nurse I know quite well.

(Thread title)
Bookies now taking bets on first items that will be rationed.


RetroComp
Posts: 11,224
Forum Member
✭✭✭
09/08/19 - 08:21
#1
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/bookmakers-taking-bets-what-government-18861706.amp
Bookmakers Paddy Power are offering odds on what will be rationed first after Brexit.

The betting firm are offering 12/1 that food rationing will be officially introduced by the end of 2019.

And they're taking bets on what household items will be restricted first.

Fuel is the favourite, at 2/1, followed by Milk at 4/1.

Further down the list, a white wine clampdown is 33/1. Gin rationing is priced at 50/1 and chicken at 66/1.


Jennyanydots (yes everybody... that's me)
Posts: 7,798
Forum Member
✭✭✭
09/08/19 - 08:35
#5
Please let the ration books be burgundy..... oh, pleeeaaaaase. It'd be just too ironic.


smilliekylie
Posts: 2,823
Forum Member
✭✭✭
09/08/19 - 08:58
#6
NHS treatments and medicines will be the first. My Trust already has plans to cancel operations and close wards from day 1. We will have to.


allnamesaretaken
Posts: 1,488
Forum Member
✭✭✭
09/08/19 - 09:10
#9
Has your trust announced it to the local community?


smilliekylie
Posts: 2,823
Forum Member
✭✭✭
09/08/19 - 09:57
#16
No, we are not allowed to, there is a ban on such announcements from NHS England. Government obviously know. We will probably start the cancellations in the weeks before No Deal if No Deal looks certain, that is the time people will know. We are not the only Trust doing this, I know for a fact it is widespread policy across the UK.



(non-thread comment)

Despite my flippancy over burgundy ration books, it is now becoming quite bewildering. I just hope none of this is true, but if it is, then it's entirely consistent with everything else that is slowly but surely filtering out into the public consciousness.
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